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John o’ Groats to Land’s End virtual walk

Great to meet you virtually (and by PM), even though in reality, on Wednesday, I was here ...
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(Puy St.Vincent les Prés dans les Hautes Alpes)



The weather was a bit better this morning (Le pré de Mme Carle vers le glacier blanc)
Don’t burst the bubble. But then, I don’t think snails are on the menu in that part of the world. They wouldn’t be able to fit ‘Herefordshire fecit’ onto their shells, unless they were particularly large
 
To say the very least, Lu and I very much enjoyed two good walks out with dear Marchbanks, near Bromyard, yesterday. I think we managed a good [musical?] ensemble and tempo through out. Not HIP fast, nor German heavy romantic slow!

Neither dear Marchbanks [I hope] nor Lu were over-stressed, though I am feeling it this morning! The joints!

But days of active quietude are the high points in my life! Simple pleasures!!!

I am sure some very nice photos will be along over the next few days, showing the slow worldly life of my locality. I am blest to live here, and have the kind interest of many including my friend, Marchbanks ...

Best wishes from George
 
Yesterday was rather unusual on the journey from JOG to LE - for the first and possibly only time the virtual and real walks started from precisely the same place - Edwyn Ralph, a village (not a person) to the north of Bromyard. @George J and Lu the terrier, who had signed up to be virtual meets for the day, thus became real ones as well.

When my costume and makeup teams had done their work and I had autographed all the items the well-wishers had bought from the merch truck, my cameraman announced that the light was now suitable. The three of us posed for posterity.

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At 1030 the Village Hall was opened up for a Coffee Morning and Lego Marchbanks emerged. It turned out he had thought it to be a fine place to spend the previous night. I gave the Chairman enough to cover the cost of the jemmied lock and depleted bar stock. LM gave us a cursory nod and wave, then stomped off towards Ledbury on the next stage of the virtual walk.

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George, Lu and I set off in the direction of the church, then the fields beyond. I looked at my map and pointed authoritatively in the direction we needed to go to follow the invisible public footpath. Not for the last time, 100m further on our route was blocked by a fence covered in barbed wire. I thought I saw my mistake and turned the map the right way round, but it didn’t seem to help matters. In the meantime, George had looked at the sun, then his watch, and was pointing in a completely different direction to where I could now see a metal gate glinting in the distance.

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Sensibly, Lu decided to take control of the situation and led us to the first of two virtual railway stations that were pretending to be real, fitting perfectly with the theme for the day. This one was Rowden Mill.

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We vaguely followed the course of the railway, passing extremely quickly under a rather dodgy-looking bridge…

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…and after a few more miles arrived at Fencote, where the 'station' has a disconcerting is-it-or-isn’t-it air.

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Despite now being on the Herefordshire Trail the grass was knee-high for long stretches. Lu would disappear for a while, then her head would re-emerge as she jumped up to check the route. We saw a red kite repeatedly soaring upwards and diving down, apparently without effort - fabulous.

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Back at chez George, he and I saw off a bottle of Le Ronsay while Lu decided to recharge her batteries for part two…

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…which involved George showing me the local flora…

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…and Lu deciding it was her turn to wear a hat.

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It was nearly 6.00 when the day’s walking was ended. My phone app said we had covered 12.4 miles, enough to get Lego Marchbanks two-thirds of the way to Ledbury. Thanks to George and Lu for a wonderful day out in glorious surroundings.

‘If you have been affected by any issues in this programme…’ - sorry, I mean ‘if you want to sign up as a virtual meetee…’ the route is still very fluid south of Bristol (ie only one meeting has been planned so far.) Volunteers are welcome.
 
What a beautiful entry in the log of your virtual, but real, walk!

Thank you for you for creating such a lovely and unusual day out.

I only live a few miles from Edwyn Ralph, but have not been there for probably forty five years! Funny how people often miss the beauty of their own locality! Taken for granted, I suppose. But it is sure that Lu and I will do that walk again ...

Thank you and best wishes from George
 
Such a glorious, simple pleasure day out.

Dear Marchbanks, this was the best day so far in my life since Lu came to me, and the other Lu days have all been better than since I had Fred the Welsh Collie put down in January 1997.

I really hope that you will visit our slow old style area again many times if it suits.

I can only thank you for inviting me and Lu to be part of you marvellous adventure.

Very best wishes from George
 
Such a glorious, simple pleasure day out.

Dear Marchbanks, this was the best day so far in my life since Lu came to me, and the other Lu days have all been better than since I had Fred the Welsh Collie put down in January 1997.

I really hope that you will visit our slow old style area again many times if it suits.

I can only thank you for inviting me and Lu to be part of you marvellous adventure.

Very best wishes from George
Hi George - I’ll be back, as another old style rustic once said. There’s nothing quite as therapeutic as a long walk in peaceful surroundings. Today’s was only six miles to the local Co-op and back, but there were still a number of sights to lift the spirits. NB Warwickshire (as opposed to Herefordshire) orchid!

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Utterly-splendid stuff; greatly enjoyed.

Indeed. And such a lovely part of the world.

In the early 90s when I was supposed to be calling on insurance brokers between Birmingham and Hereford to flog them my employer's wares I'd visit every record shop I found, buy lovely cheese and pickle cobs from the corner shop near the Hereford ground and eat them up in West Malvern, whist on the way trying to find where Stephen Duffy lived. The correspondence from the fan club (his mum I think) came from Bromyard and as it too had a broker I could pretend to have visited I'd often end up there. The Hop Pole Hotel still there?

A mate used to laugh at me for working for a tinpot outfit that never even gave me a car phone. But on a sunny afternoon with a cob, a boot full of spring water, a new purchase, that view and being incommunicado unless I went to the phone box near The Kettle Sings, nah.
 
Dear deebster,

The Hop Pole has been closed for years and is in a bad state. Really sad, but it will be used again, if only for flats. Parking would be the problem with that though, so we need to re-establish decent public transport. It has literally been decimated in the last four years of cuts.

The last bus from Worcester to Bromyard is at 14:20! Hereford is better, but there is no longer any service at all to Leominster, and Ledbury is very poorly served. Only Hereford gets a useful service for commuting ...

We have to get away from cars as being unavoidable.

Best wishes from George
 
Your double walked past me in Exeter today.

Poor fellow. Was he searching frantically through all his pockets for some lost item and wearing a look of near-complete confusion and consternation? If so, he may well have been related.
The Hop Pole Hotel still there?

Oddly enough I was asking George about the Hop Pole as my grandfather ran it in the 1950s! Sadly, if you look at its entry on Google Maps you will see some horrendous photos of the state of the 'accommodation' before it closed a few years ago.

The tracker in Lego Marchbanks' knapsack has just transmitted its data stream for the day. Either he's sticking to his resolution to keep to long-distance trails wherever possible or he has completely lost his sense of direction lately. Or perhaps the Herefordshire cider is stronger than he was anticipating.

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Full map here. Apologies for the annotations being way behind schedule.
 
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On Friday the 900-mile mark was reached, in the grounds of Goodrich Castle. The Roaring Meg cannon was specially annotated by English Heritage to mark the occasion.

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As Lego Marchbanks was obviously on a roll, I decided to give him extra impetus with a lengthy walk along the banks of the Stratford Canal yesterday. It was looking extremely pretty in the morning sunlight…

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…and the locals were out taking advantage of the hot weather.

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The Stratford Canal is known for its aqueducts, which have the towpaths at the level of the bottom of the channel rather than the top. Here’s a cute little one.

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Following on from last week’s walk, there was another virtual railway station. In a rather more peculiar location this time.

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At half-time, I had covered nine miles. As half-a-bottle of wine slipped down, the idea of doing the same distance again in the afternoon began to feel like a good one.

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There were beautiful damselflies darting about everywhere. Only one was kind enough to stay still for twenty seconds, so he had his photo taken.

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More locals who were keen to be photographed, this time while they were out for a swim…

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…and finally, across the scary aqueduct. Come on Marchbanks, you can do it. One hand on the rail, the other on your hat, focus on a fixed point on the far side and you’ll be there in no time.

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Final total for the day - 18.5 miles. When I got home, I poured a glass of Rochefort, went out into the garden and collapsed in a chair. It immediately began to rain. I didn’t care.
 


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